Non-Erotic: Question about police procedures

[gunhilltrain]

May I describe a scenario to see if it's even remotely plausible? The story is loosely based on the 1993 movie Falling Down, although the plot and one of the main characters is different. Only the last scene from the movie would be included in the story.

It is similar to the movie in that an unemployed man has gone on a rampage across Los Angeles after his car breaks down. At the end of the day, he his confronted by two Los Angeles detectives, not one, and it is indoors, inside of a diner.

Several people have told me that police officers will not usually enter a building like that until they have called in back-up. In the movie, the lone detective (Robert Duvall) confronts the suspect (Michael Douglas) by himself even though Douglas is trapped at the end of a pier. His back-up arrives near the beginning of the scene, but they seem to take an inordinate amount of time to get over there and in fact play no part in the outcome.

As in the movie, I assume that the suspect does intend to commit suicide by cop. One option is that he actually tells them that (as in the movie); another option is that they can guess it from the way he is acting and moving.My idea is that one of the detectives (a woman) tries to distract him by getting him a soda, which she can obtain from the counterman who is stuck in his place there. Since the suspect is stressed out and truly thirsty from the day he is having, he accepts it. That gives her a few minutes to chat with him and convince him to surrender.

Assuming that he has the gun in his jacket (as in the movie), although it is not a water pistol, there are several ways that could be done. It would be too risky to have him remove the gun himself. I considered that it would be dramatic if she removed the gun from his pocket herself. A safer option might be to have him lie down flat on the floor and cuff him, although that seems a bit anti-climatic

So how do the police handle a potential suicide by cop, assuming they have time to know it’s coming? How many artistic liberties can I get away with here?

 

[NotWise]

So how do the police handle a potential suicide by cop, assuming they have time to know it’s coming? How many artistic liberties can I get away with here?

Here, the police just go along with it. Suicide by cop succeeds pretty often.

I'm not totally sure what you're asking. If he's cooperating, wouldn't the police just ask him to raise his arms and then frisk him to find the gun?

If he isn't cooperating, then the police wouldn't play around.

 

[jaF0]

What's your time frame? Prior to the late 90s, they may very well have done as you outline. Today, probably a SWAT team, a couple of armored BearCats, evacuate 3 city blocks, a remote controlled robot, helicopters for air cover ......

 

[PennameWombat]

May I describe a scenario to see if it's even remotely plausible? The story is loosely based on the 1993 movie Falling Down, although the plot and one of the main characters is different. Only the last scene from the movie would be included in the story.
<snip>
Several people have told me that police officers will not usually enter a building like that until they have called in back-up. In the movie, the lone detective (Robert Duvall) confronts the suspect (Michael Douglas) by himself even though Douglas is trapped at the end of a pier. His back-up arrives near the beginning of the scene, but they seem to take an inordinate amount of time to get over there and in fact play no part in the outcome.

Welcome to the land of writing tropes ("significant or recurring themes"), the heroic cop who talks down or otherwise deescalates a situation. But, they're right. Procedure is to get backup in place, although it's often the case that the initial responding officers are forced to directly confront a suspect. But, especially in the case where the suspect is or is suspected to have hostages, they fall back and, e.g., surround the house.

I call it a trope because it's so regularly portrayed.

<snip>
So how do the police handle a potential suicide by cop, assuming they have time to know it’s coming? How many artistic liberties can I get away with here?

Just over a decade ago my wife and I lived in the northwest US across the street from a nice older couple whose twenty-something son had mental health issues. He was always friendly and polite to us and he'd never been known to physically assault anyone, but one day he and his father got into an argument and the son grabbed a kitchen knife and waved it around before running out of the house.

They called the police, hoping for help in searching and 'talking him down,' as the local force had claimed recent training in de-escalating mental health episodes.

No. SWAT teams arrived, an armored SUV or two, cops in full tactical combat gear with sub-machine guns... We lived near an elementary school, which was locked down and armed cops patrolled the grounds... The father got arrested yelling at them to 'back off!' No drones back then, and the local force didn't have helicopters but they might've requested one from the multi-county agency which covered the area.

The son recovered his wits enough to reveal himself, he was hiding in some bushes in a little park nearby, and make a show of holding his hands up and giving up the knife while a half dozen machine guns pointed at him. The cases where the sufferer isn't quite so with-it is where they simply get shot. (A couple of people have recently been shot by police around that area recently in similar circumstances where they didn't have the wherewithal to give up the 'weapon' but reports indicate they weren't directly threatening anyone. The cops just got tired of waiting...)

What can you get away with? Since entertainments regularly portray the atypical, lots of people won't get annoyed. If you want rigid adherence to real-world... not so much. One thing will be, where is he found? If he's in clear sight, no single cop IRL would (today) approach. It would have to be a surprise encounter.

But again, is this a documentary?

 

[gunhilltrain]

First of all, it does take place around the time frame of the movie, which would be 1993. And it is fictional, not a documentary. I'm assuming that that suspect had already killed at least two people (as in the Frederick Forrest character in his shop).

It seems like the Duvall character rushed in the save the lives Douglas's wife and child. That might justify him getting in so close so quickly. Otherwise, Duvall would have been making the situation worse by doing that. It does seem implausible that when the back-up cops arrive, they take so long to get across the pier. I can't tell the exact distance, but it doesn't seem to be that far. In fact, they seem to stop for a moment to order civilians to get back.

And yeah, I don't have that particular plot point - the immediate danger to the wife and child - so it becomes hard to justify the police approaching him inside a building in that way - mean, with just two of them and they already know he is in there.

 

[LAHomedog]

Well, as you might have seen on AH I am a screenwriter/TV scriptwriter by trade. And you are asking some interesting questions here:

Let 's start with dramatic license. I know this movie. First, if you are paying the upfront money and the backend for Michael Douglas and Robert Duvall, you are not going to make it without a big scene in the end between them. There is no reality there. That is purely Hollywood. There was probably somewhere between $10 to $20 million being spent there between them. That scene was going to happen.

In real life, LAPD? It would never had happened. There would have been such a multi-jurisdictional force turning out, if would have been overwhelming. If I'm remembering correctly, it ended on the Santa Monica Pier. That is a different city than LA with its own police force. LA County Sheriffs would be involved. It would have been a police mob scene.

Out here, suicide by cop typically takes a gun in a hand aiming at a cop. I'm not saying there aren't bad or unwarranted shooting, but suicide by cop usually takes a weapon and pointing it at a police officer.

After the rampage, no cop is going to try to distract him or disarm him. That's all creative license that has noting to do with reality. They are going to point their weapons at him and tell him to lay down on the floor with his hands above his head and if he doesn't he is dead.

Period.

LAPD is trained that when they fire their weapon they fire center chest and three shots. Bang, bang, bang. Not one or two, but three. It is how they are trained and what they practice.

If you want a plausible reason why some cop might go in and try to get him to surrender there has to be a relationship between them that is so strong he convinces his higher ups to let him give it a try. That is an old cliche, but it is still used on occasion.

Me? Rampage, a pose of angry LA cops and a gun, the dude is dead.

 

[LAHomedog]

It looks like it worked for the movie, so it may also work for your story. The more relevant question might be, how many artistic liberties are you willing to take?

Have you seen the movie? Actually, in my opinion it didn't work. Pretty lame. Driven by Douglas' star power at the time. You can't always capture lightening in the bottle.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Procedure: U.S.

(Today) Get the suspect face down on the ground with arms and legs out. Cuff him. Get him up. Search him.

(Yesteryear) Have him kneel down, cross his ankles, hands on top of his head with his fingers interlaced. Get behind him, grab his interlaced fingers, and squeeze. Hard. Slap a cuff around one wrist, bring that hand and the other around behind his back and finish cuffing him. Stand him up and search him.

(Long time ago) Shoot him.

Backup is always called but every police force does have some cowboys who rush in getting themselves in trouble, etc.

Also, many police will tell the suspect that they will shoot/kill him if he doesn't follow their instructions, especially if they know he's armed.

And in real life there is no just shooting him in the leg, arm, etc. Center mass all the time and you keep shooting until the threat to your life and others has been eliminated. That's what's taught in all police academies across the country. (And tell people this on FB gets you in FB jail because they don't like the truth over there.)

 

[LAHomedog]

And in real life there is no just shooting him in the leg, arm, etc. Center mass all the time and you keep shooting until the threat to your life and others has been eliminated. That's what's taught in all police academies across the country. (And tell people this on FB gets you in FB jail because they don't like the truth over there.)

As I said just above you, LAPD is trained center chest and three shot. Bang, bang, bang. No stopping. Three shots. Right for the heart. It is how they are trained and what they practice in the range.

The cop/FBI film shooting range target stuff is all BS for the movies. But it makes a better story.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Have you seen the movie? Actually, in my opinion it didn't work. Pretty lame. Driven by Douglas' star power at the time. You can't always capture lightening in the bottle.

Yes, I have seen the movie, a while back. The ending confrontation and other scenes are on YouTube.

There are things about the film that are unlikely. Douglas is supposed to, I believe, walk all the way from central Los Angeles to Venice on the Pacific Ocean (not Santa Monica) which is part of the city of Los Angeles. That is quite a long way to go - many miles - on foot.

I had wanted really to dramatize the female detective, who took an unconventional route into the department and who is careful about using deadly force. (She has shot somebody once, but he didn't die.) I have made up certain scenarios about her - sometimes she is in a different city. It appears that this plot doesn't work.

 

[gunhilltrain]

Falling Down ending.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIgzeqEi2ik

According to Google Maps street view, the Venice pier appears to be at least three or four blocks long. That would be too far for Duvall to really see the cops at the landside end. They also bumble around a bit with the civilians at that end. I'm not sure that they could have transversed that distance in time - although they appear to have about two minutes to do it.

Also, if Douglas is at the far end, where is he going to go? I suppose he could jump into the ocean and swim for it, although he probably wouldn't get very far.

 

[CyranoJ]

There are things about the film that are unlikely. Douglas is supposed to, I believe, walk all the way from central Los Angeles to Venice on the Pacific Ocean (not Santa Monica) which is part of the city of Los Angeles. That is quite a long way to go - many miles - on foot.

(Sorry if what follows seems over-obvious or covers ground you've already thought of. This is just how I'd approach thinking the question through if I were trying to write it.)

The situation in the movie has an in-story explanation that isn't just about fictionalizing police procedure. Duvall is alone at the end because a) he's unpopular in the department (his fellow officers mistakenly imagine him to be a coward), and b) the prospect of a man walking the distance D-FENS walks while doing what he's doing seems unlikely and nobody buys his theory that all this mayhem is the work of one guy.

In the film, the final showdown happens on the pier because that site is of personal importance to D-FENS, and is precipitated in particular by the fact that Duvall catches up to him after he's kidnapped his wife and kid and sees a potential murder-suicide developing. It develops at some remove from backup because the situation just unfolding too quickly and the backup is trying to reach Duvall through a crowd. And it ends the way it does because D-FENS a) has been disarmed but claims to be packing too many weapons in too many pockets for Duvall to be sure of that, and b) grew up watching Clint Eastwood movies.

In other words, everything about the real climactic scene in Falling Down is carefully written to tie in believably with the situation and the natures and motivations of all the characters. If you're doing something like this but that isn't it, it might be worth working backward from the scene you want to figure out:

- Why your version of D-FENS ultimately makes for that diner, and who this D-FENS is.
- What this D-FENS is wearing and whether it would be possible to tell if he's been fully disarmed (I figure it mostly wouldn't without searching him).
- Why your detectives might have an encounter with him (the kidnapping scenario might make less sense for a diner, but IDK; could be a simple chance encounter).
- What your detectives' relationship with the rest of the force is, and whether they too would be disbelieved or unpopular or backup might be slow to arrive for them.
- What are the specifics of the situation that brings everything to a head.

There's a very wide range of police cultures on offer in the States (and anywhere else, but the US in particular has a lot more such cultures that lean toward the trigger-happy end of the spectrum), so once you have those pieces in place I expect you can justify a wide range of preferred outcomes "procedurally."

If you want to guarantee that the procedure is a bit, well, looser... then make the target perceptibly mentally ill or nonwhite. You don't have to make that specifically part of your detectives' motivations, of course (movie and fictional cops generally need to be at least semi-likable) but it could influence how the general situation plays out.

And finally, if one of your detectives is reluctant to pull the trigger as part of their character -- known in services outside the US as "practicing restraint" -- then their being an outsider and presumed "coward" because of that is a genuine possibility.

 

[MillieDynamite]

In the 1980s, my father worked as a PI, and part of the job was fugitive recovery. On one occasion, a bale jumper called his girlfriend and told her he would hide out at her place for a few days. Pops had talked to gf the day before; she’d agreed to call if he showed. She phoned dad as soon as he called her.

Once the fugitive got there, the couple got in a fight. The gf, having had enough of being beaten by him, the woman cut the man with a knife. He walked to a nearby hospital. When dad got there, she told him where he’d gone that he was injured and had a gun.

Dad and his partner went to the ER, spotted the man, nursing his would with a towel wrapped around his hand, went to the charge nurse. Between her and him, they worked out a plan to trap the man alone in a hall.

Dad’s partner went to the back of the hall, a dead-end where you had to go left or right, and stood just around the corner. The charge nurse then told the man he was next and to follow her. She led him to the hall, ducked into an exam room, locked the door, door, and lay down on the floor.

Pop’s stepped into the hall, drew his weapon, not pointing it at the man. And told him to disarm himself and kick him the gun. His partner announced where he was, with his head and gun peeking around the corner. Both firearms were pointed a the floor, not the bale jumper.

The guys said, “What if I draw and fire?”

Dad leveled his gun at the man, “If that’s what you want. Otherwise, use a thumb and finger, lift the gun out of your belt or pocket, place it on the tiles, and kick it to me.”

He did as he was told. His partner cuffed the guy, they patted him down, put him in the room where the nurse was hiding. After his stitched up, they took him to County Sheriff's Department and turned him in.

 

[gunhilltrain]

(Sorry if what follows seems over-obvious or covers ground you've already thought of. This is just how I'd approach thinking the question through if I were trying to write it.)

The situation in the movie has an in-story explanation that isn't just about fictionalizing police procedure. Duvall is alone at the end because a) he's unpopular in the department (his fellow officers mistakenly imagine him to be a coward), and b) the prospect of a man walking the distance D-FENS walks while doing what he's doing seems unlikely and nobody buys his theory that all this mayhem is the work of one guy.

In the film, the final showdown happens on the pier because that site is of personal importance to D-FENS, and is precipitated in particular by the fact that Duvall catches up to him after he's kidnapped his wife and kid and sees a potential murder-suicide developing. It develops at some remove from backup because the situation just unfolding too quickly and the backup is trying to reach Duvall through a crowd. And it ends the way it does because D-FENS a) has been disarmed but claims to be packing too many weapons in too many pockets for Duvall to be sure of that, and b) grew up watching Clint Eastwood movies.

In other words, everything about the real climactic scene in Falling Down is carefully written to tie in believably with the situation and the natures and motivations of all the characters. If you're doing something like this but that isn't it, it might be worth working backward from the scene you want to figure out:

- Why your version of D-FENS ultimately makes for that diner, and who this D-FENS is.
- What this D-FENS is wearing and whether it would be possible to tell if he's been fully disarmed (I figure it mostly wouldn't without searching him).
- Why your detectives might have an encounter with him (the kidnapping scenario might make less sense for a diner, but IDK; could be a simple chance encounter).
- What your detectives' relationship with the rest of the force is, and whether they too would be disbelieved or unpopular or backup might be slow to arrive for them.
- What are the specifics of the situation that brings everything to a head.

There's a very wide range of police cultures on offer in the States (and anywhere else, but the US in particular has a lot more such cultures that lean toward the trigger-happy end of the spectrum), so once you have those pieces in place I expect you can justify a wide range of preferred outcomes "procedurally."

If you want to guarantee that the procedure is a bit, well, looser... then make the target perceptibly mentally ill or nonwhite. You don't have to make that specifically part of your detectives' motivations, of course (movie and fictional cops generally need to be at least semi-likable) but it could influence how the general situation plays out.

And finally, if one of your detectives is reluctant to pull the trigger as part of their character -- known in services outside the US as "practicing restraint" -- then their being an outsider and presumed "coward" because of that is a genuine possibility.

Well, first of all, I believe that the filmmakers took some artistic liberties by shortening the distance Douglas has to walk. The Expo rail line runs to Santa Monica, not Venice, and it has a dog-leg to USC. It's more than fifteen miles long. I assume Douglas would have go at least twelve miles, which is like walking most of the length of Manhattan Island. As somebody mentioned, it's hard to believe that he wasn't picked up along the way. (Watch the Expo line video out the front cab, if you can stand it, and the trip west from USC seems endless.)

I guess D-FENS is similar to the version in the movie. He seems to be having, well, psychological issues that day. I assume he went to Venice to see his family, and not finding them, he went into the diner because he hadn't eaten or drank anything since earlier in the day.

I'll get into the motivations of the cops next.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-D-pRDwDFk

 

[jaF0]

Are we talking about re-writing the movie, or writing a story using a similar scene?

 

[CyranoJ]

Well, first of all, I believe that the filmmakers took some artistic liberties by shortening the distance Douglas has to walk.

I think "abstracting" it might be the liberty in question. They don't get into detail about the specific route. (Perhaps not parallel to the Metro line, I guess. )

The distance itself would be prohibitive for a sane person on a normal day, but the whole point of the story is D-FENS not being one of those. The distance is part of the as-written story and why it plays out the way it does over the time span that it does, and technically, it's not impossible for a sufficiently motivated person to cover more than 15 miles in eight hours. (The upper possible limit is 32 miles, I think, for someone extraordinarily fit. I'm guessing D-FENS manages it powered by sheer Rage.)

Would he have been picked up along the route? Maybe, maybe not. A lot of crazy looking people in big cities, and only one or two unpopular cops actually suspect D-FENS of anything, because who the Hell would have walked between all those sites? It's absurd. That's a basic feature of the script, I expect it was part of the elevator pitch.

I guess D-FENS is similar to the version in the movie. He seems to be having, well, psychological issues that day. I assume he went to Venice to see his family, and not finding them, he went into the diner because he hadn't eaten or drank anything since earlier in the day.

Now... that might pose a problem for covering the distance. The convenience store and burger house encounters happen in the movie because D-FENS does need to eat and drink in order to cover the ground.

If he doesn't do that here, then maybe you might want to set up your own diner encounter inside the fifteen-mile radius where he meets his Waterloo. Maybe he hasn't even reached the family home at that point. There's all sorts of branching choices in this kind of scenario.

I'll get into the motivations of the cops next.

I look forward to it. This is actually kind of an intriguing "what if" idea. (And I love that movie. )

 

[gunhilltrain]

Are we talking about re-writing the movie, or writing a story using a similar scene?

A little of both? I don't have anything from the first, what is it, hour and a half of the movie? A few things, like the shootout with the gang and the neo-Nazi shop owner, are briefly described but not depicted. Obviously, there is no Detective Prendergast in this.

 

[gunhilltrain]

I think "abstracting" it might be the liberty in question. They don't get into detail about the specific route. (Perhaps not parallel to the Metro line, I guess. )

The distance itself would be prohibitive for a sane person on a normal day, but the whole point of the story is D-FENS not being one of those. The distance is part of the as-written story and why it plays out the way it does, and technically, it's not impossible for a sufficiently motivated person to cover more than 15 miles in eight hours. (The upper possible limit is 32 miles, I think, for someone extraordinarily fit. I'm guessing D-FENS manages it powered by sheer Rage.)

Would he have been picked up along the route? Maybe, maybe not. A lot of crazy looking people in big cities, and only one or two unpopular cops actually suspect D-FENS of anything, because who the Hell would have walked between all those sites? It's absurd. That's a basic feature of the script, I expect it was part of the elevator pitch.

I look forward to it. This is actually kind of an intriguing "what if" idea.

It does parallel the rail line almost exactly. The shortest route for Douglas would be along Venice Boulevard, while the rail line is on Exposition Boulevard. The two routes actually cross each other at Culver City. So it is possible he could have walked it.

Don't the police figure out that it's the same guy because they can trace the geography and timing of each incident and see the pattern? I think that's in the movie.

I've got to think more about the cops and see what the feedback on them is. I could have just gone ahead and written it, but I wanted to do some research on it first. I've never written a police procedural before.

 

[CyranoJ]

Don't the police figure out that it's the same guy because they can trace the geography and timing of each incident and see the pattern? I think that's in the movie.

What's in the movie is that one cop and his friend figure it out because it's obvious if you're willing to believe the improbable, and the rest disbelieve him because he's hated and anything he says is automatically suspect and besides people just don't walk that far. And the scenario the movie presents is, I say with very limited knowledge (but not zero knowledge) of internal police culture dynamics, plausible.

(Where D-FENS even comes onto the radar in the movie, or rather when Prendergast's theory starts to gain at least minimal traction, is when he wanders into affluent neighborhoods dressed in military-surplus gear and starts creating chaos. In the movie, that's the last... quarter or so of his journey, I have no idea how that compares to the real geography.)

I've got to think more about the cops and see what the feedback on them is. I could have just gone ahead and written it, but I wanted to do some research on it first. I've never written a police procedural before.

I think all I can advise there is that police culture is wild and surprisingly diverse and the parts of it that you should pay most attention to are the things that will get people fired, ostracized, or demoted, or will sidetrack their careers.

Plenty of scumbags thrive in cop culture but they don't always do it unscathed; likewise plenty of good cops exist in cop culture but, likewise, don't always survive unscathed. You need to decide what the right dramatic beat is for your story, perhaps, before getting too deep into all that, because I could see it getting paralyzing. Just my $.02.

 

[MillieDynamite]

Damn it, I'm going to have to rewatch the movie now.

 

[gunhilltrain]

What's in the movie is that one cop and his friend figure it out because it's obvious if you're willing to believe the improbable, and the rest disbelieve him because he's hated and anything he says is automatically suspect and besides people just don't walk that far. And the scenario the movie presents is, I say with very limited knowledge (but not zero knowledge) of internal police culture dynamics, plausible.

(Where D-FENS even comes onto the radar in the movie, or rather when Prendergast's theory starts to gain at least minimal traction, is when he wanders into affluent neighborhoods dressed in military-surplus gear and starts creating chaos. In the movie, that's the last... quarter or so of his journey, I have no idea how that compares to the real geography.)

I think all I can advise there is that police culture is wild and surprisingly diverse and the parts of it that you should pay most attention to are the things that will get people fired, ostracized, or demoted, or will sidetrack their careers.

Plenty of scumbags thrive in cop culture but they don't always do it unscathed; likewise plenty of good cops exist in cop culture but, likewise, don't always survive unscathed. You need to decide what the right dramatic beat is for your story, perhaps, before getting too deep into all that, because I could see it getting paralyzing. Just my $.02.

If real-life cop Adam Plantinga's non-fiction books are to be believed, cops will always come to another cop's aid if called in. A rare example where that doesn't happen is in the movie Serpico, where his back-up team won't help him when he is trying to enter a drug dealer's apartment and he gets shot for his efforts. But he had been trying to expose police graft, which made him more hated than Prendergast could ever be. And that was in New York fifty years ago.

It's getting kind of late in the evening for me to describe what I was going to do in my own story. Maybe tomorrow.

Oh, the geography still doesn't add up. Douglas would have to make a long detour to get anywhere near Beverly Hills and Brentwood. Baldwin Hills is upscale, but it's almost entirely Black. Oh well, it's only a movie!

 

[CyranoJ]

If real-life cop Adam Plantinga's non-fiction books are to be believed, cops will always come to another cop's aid if called in.

Also likely the case today except for cops who are perceived as rats against other cops, or as cowards (as in Prendergast's case), AFAIK. The wrinkle here is that being a cop who doesn't shoot people at the proverbial drop of a hat can very easily put you in the latter category, which is something you don't often see in books by ex-cops (b/c it's embarrassing, I suspect, or b/c they themselves don't want to admit having such attitudes) but that does turn up in reporting on law enforcement culture.

It's getting kind of late in the evening for me to describe what I was going to do in my own story. Maybe tomorrow.

Whenever, no big.

the geography still doesn't add up . . . Oh well, it's only a movie!

Agreed! And that part doesn't surprise me, it makes sense. The movie's "geography" is really about a conjoined social and personal narrative, not an actual city.

 

[CyranoJ]

Oh, here's an idea, BTW:

• Start out assuming a person with an insane degree of motivation and adrenaline, but who cannot cover 32 miles in a day. Say they have 16 miles in them.
• Pick your own location for the gridlock (or other incident) that sets them off.
• Map out your own path westward, provide them with a specific target, and get them into trouble along the way that's consistent with those locations.
• Terminate their journey at the furthest limit you can justify from the starting point. The law catches up with them, and Something Happens to resolve the story.

This approach is more about worldbuilding than trying to just switch out a beat from the original story. You may also find, however, that it's a good way to differentiate your focal character from the D-FENS of the films and build your own scenario organically, instead of trying to adjust someone else's story.

Just a thought. It occurs to me that it would actually be possible to set up a "Falling Down" one-page roleplaying game to run through these things.

 

[gunhilltrain]

I’ve gotten too hung up on the geography and the other details of Falling Down. The main point was to examine the personalities of the two detectives, especially the woman who I’ve named Sandra.

I have her as being about thirty-eight years old, divorced, and the mother of a daughter about thirteen or so. She hadn’t planned on being a police officer, but being at loose ends after graduating from college, she took the tests and found out that she was well-suited for the job. Her personality is pretty calm for a cop and she is also rather witty, which actually can be an asset for that kind of work.

Her partner is a younger Latino guy who has recently been promoted after his time in uniform. As the senior partner, Sandra is his mentor (which is how I think things are done in police departments) and they get along very well.

I’ve tried to imagine scenarios in which I could use these two characters, not necessarily in Los Angeles. I thought of having something based on the 1996 Ransom (set in New York), which is an even more improbable movie than Falling Down. I made it into a sort of dark comedy in which Sandra has to deal with two arrogant but inept guys, Tom Mullen (Mel Gibson) and Jimmy Shaker (Gary Sinise), plus “competition” from the FBI who are skeptical of her abilities.

Of course, in the real movie, Mullen is the one who figures out the case. The way I have it, he is in way over his head. For example, Sandra is both amused and appalled by his stunts like going on TV to offer a reward of his own without telling her about it first.

She also finds Shaker’s statements about why and how he shot his own colleagues to be completely unbelievable (it is pretty far-fetched) and that leads her to start suspecting him as the perpetrator of the kidnapping.

 

[MillieDynamite]

I thought of having something based on the 1996 Ransom (set in New York), which is an even more improbable movie than Falling Down. I made it into a sort of dark comedy in which Sandra has to deal with two arrogant but inept guys, Tom Mullen (Mel Gibson) and Jimmy Shaker (Gary Sinise), plus “competition” from the FBI who are skeptical of her abilities.

The original Ransom is a much better, but less exciting story. Set in a nameless midwestern city. The man does the same thing, matching he ransom money as bounty for anyone who gives information leading to the arrest and conviction of the kidnappers if they don't return his child by midnight. He does the bounty announcement in a live TV commercial on all three networks, and all radio stations in the city at the same time. He also promises to help with cost of their defense if they are captured after they let his child go free. I watched the movie on TCM last year.